"Sunshine of Your Love" (opens in separate window)

build back borderless, bankrupt, and broken

friday, june 2nd, 2023

Remember: the same people who cannot protect the border from foreign invaders want you to believe that they can control inflation, COVID, and climate change.  While they lose the war against drug cartels in their own backyard, they want you to think that they can successfully manage wars on the other side of the globe.  While small towns struggle with transnational gang battles, urban homeless shelters overflow, and record-high overdose deaths cripple American society, the government's crack team of nation-killers ignore the country's pressing threats and instead preach about racism, "green" energy, and the importance of welcoming men in girls' restrooms.

History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.

The "ruling class" deserves to go extinct because useless things are little more than a fire hazard.  Take a look around: America is burning.

Here's a simple rule-of-thumb to keep in mind: whenever you see crime that is spun as too big and complex for the government to tackle with its oversized toolkit of immense powers and nearly unlimited funding, the government is in on the crime.  I don't mean that it is aware of and actively monitoring the crime as it unfolds.  I mean that it has chosen to partner with the perpetrators and should be considered every bit as dangerous to the public as any other violent criminal would be.  

When the same government agents who conducted warrantless searches of Americans' cell phones in order to nab every patriotic granny waving a flag near the Capitol on January 6 claim they have no way of tracking illegal aliens in the United State, they're lying.  When the same national security surveillance State that censors Americans' online speech claims not to know how many illegal aliens are here, it is lying.  When the same IRS that regularly targets conservatives for their political beliefs claims it can't track tens of millions of migrants working here illegally — or worse, stealing Americans' social security numbers and fraudulently assuming their identities — it is lying.  When the same Intelligence Community that has eyes on every inch of Ukraine's border claims that the U.S. border is just too long to reasonably guard, it is lying. 

Stupidity is a self-correcting problem.

The American government is in the illegal immigration business, and as such, it actively aids and abets narco-traffickers, child sex slavers, money-launderers, murderers, violent gangbangers, and every other evildoer who operates freely because of the federal government's partnership with organized crime.  If we were living in a just society guided by the rule of law, every politician, bureaucrat, and just-following-orders agent of the State who has conspired to make Americans unsafe by undermining border enforcement would be charged for drug-smuggling, rape, and murder before facing a deserving fate.  For all the blood that they have spilled on neighborhood streets across the country, government accomplices should not be walking free — let alone along the halls of power.  While the federal government has the audacity to go after J6 protesters for "insurrection," its willful and intentional violation of immigration law has produced such immense national pain and suffering that treason charges are not out of the question.  When the U.S. government is actively involved in creating a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, is it not guilty of crimes against humanity?

The federal government is a malicious enterprise that routinely treats Americans as second-class citizens.  It prosecutes foreign wars in their name without their consent.  It sends their jobs overseas, shutters their factory towns, and bankrupts their futures in exchange for cheap imported trinkets and shoulder-patting promises of "progress."  It ignores the cries of Americans in pain and their desire for political change and instead locks up those who earnestly protest.  Yet of all the ways the U.S. government betrays American citizens, its utter disregard for border security and decades-long criminal operation to flood the country with illegal aliens is the most contemptible because the same government saboteurs who aid and abet vile crimes then turn around to scold Americans who object to the resulting destruction as being "racist."  For the federal government to intentionally harm Americans and then shame them for noticing is enough to make a sane person wonder who the real enemy is.

For the Establishment Class — "Big Club" Republicans and Democrats alike — the enemy is the American people.  Is there any other explanation for our current arrangement?  For the last three decades, D.C. politicians have been in bipartisan agreement that the American middle class must die so that very wealthy people could become only more obscenely wealthy.  They have done so by stabbing the American people in the back with two long blades: first, they exported the great majority of high-paying industrial and manufacturing jobs overseas in the name of "free trade," and second, they opened up America's borders to flood the nation with an endless supply of cheap labor.  In other words, the federal government eliminated the best blue-collar employment opportunities in the country and then made sure that the remaining jobs would never receive a raise.  The predictable result has been the destruction of middle class-wealth, stability, and intergenerational advancement.  America's "ruling class" knocked over all the economic ladders that had traditionally allowed an ordinary person to succeed during the course of a lifetime, support a family, and help the next generation prosper.

In exchange for destroying America's once-robust intra- and inter-generational social mobility, the wealthiest Americans made out like bandits.  Their companies benefited by relocating overseas, where slave labor went ignored and workplace rules were disentangled from the federal bureaucracy's labyrinthine regulatory minefield at home.  Their national name-brand corporations grew to become multinational behemoths with operations as diverse as a nation's accounting budget.  With the support of their friends in control of the globe's central banks, non-stop money-printing ensured that stock valuations and asset prices continued to rise.  This artificially increased upper-class wealth created so much ill-gotten loot that quid-pro-quo money spigots perpetually flowed right back into the bank accounts of "humble" political and bureaucratic "public servants."  Newly minted billionaires had the excess cash to prop up lobbying groups posing as "public interest non-profits" to do their bidding.  And because D.C.'s Uniparty was being paid handsomely to do so, the federal government's open-borders policies ensured that the über-1% never had to waste an extra dollar on housekeeping or lawn care expenses at any of the several homes they owned in the United States.

Middle-class Americans, on the other hand, lost their jobs, savings, and self-respect.  Their once safe and clean towns rusted, rotted, and died.  Low-level fast-food service jobs that had once been merely the starting point for teenage employees soon became the last, best hope for middle-aged workers.  "Retirees" were forced to return to the workforce because their pensions could not keep up with the inflation artificially set in motion by money-printing and government spending.  The costs of "owning" anything continued to rise, so fewer people now "own" anything of value.  A federal government beholden to the World Economic Forum's Marxist globalism and "climate change" zealotry dedicated itself to hurting the lower classes with an inane war on essential hydrocarbon energies.  To top it all off, the "ruling class" countermanded federal immigration law, flooded the nation with tens of millions of foreigners competing for the most vulnerable Americans' available jobs, and radically transformed once happy towns into decaying, multicultural hot zones where local traditions and historic community bonds were doomed to die.

There's a reason anybody on television arguing for Kate's Law gets fired and any president working to "build the wall" gets impeached: the U.S. government's overarching objective is to Build Back Borderless, Bankrupt, Broken, Bolshevik, and Bitter.

That's the unvarnished truth.

© 5.11.2023 by J.B Shurk, "American Thinker".

A Day In The Life.

Up at 0a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee and held-off on breakfast, took two 50mg Tramadol for various pains, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage and checked the leftover errands list. I scanned the weather and news, on my office-sunroom's desktop computer. It was a nippy 56°, and forecast to hit 75° with very little humidity.

It's Memorial Day Weekend, though Monday is the actual day. Formerly known as Decoration Day, the origins of the federal holiday can be traced back to the post-Civil War era, when a group of Union army veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic, called for a day to remember the lives of those who died defending their country. It was traditionally observed on May 30, until Congress passed the Uniform Holiday Act in 1968. Memorial Day is now observed on the last Monday in May, and some have criticized the celebratory atmosphere that the three-day weekend lends the holiday, which is often marked with cookouts among friends and family, and sales across major retailers. I have Dad's small lawn flag outside my condo, in the front garden, to commemorate the Day. Here's a brief history in *.pdf format.

As a kid, I remember Dad taking me to city US Military parades in Huntington, WVa, grave decoration treks, solemn ceremonies and other events on this Special Day; then our Family would have a picnic in the back yard. All that's gone now, with liberals/progressives/leftists gradually killing-off those events and ceremonies. Dad and I did do Family grave decorations for a couple of years, before he hit 90, but the exertion got to be too much, and we tapered-off over the years.

I have certain rules I live by. My First Rule: I don't believe anything the gov't tells me. Zero.

I lounged around all morning, listening to the Chris Plante Show LIVE, since I had nothing on my "to-do list". I made a second carafe of House French Roast Coffee, in the Chemex® Ottomatic® v2.0, had a couple of mini-croissants, opened-up the condo as temps hit the mid-60s, to get some fresh air. It was already 90° on the back patio, in the full sun, but very tolerable. My cleaners in Red Lion called, to say my load is ready there, instead of down farther south in Dallastown, so I'll go tomorrow to get it. I'll find a cleaners closer to me -- I'm searching in East York -- to drop-off/pick-up, from now on. Well, maybe...

I left at 2p, to try to find a dry cleaner/shirt laundry in East York: ZIPS -- closed, DeVono's -- closed, FormPrest -- closed, Hanna -- can't find it. All closed; nothing in East York, even with its burgeoning population. I stopped at Weis Market to get a few things, and then got home at 2:45p, dismayed at what I didn't find. Traffic was getting VERY HEAVY, for the Memorial Day weekend, and I just wanted to get off the roads. All the YELP and Google Listings were wrong and uncorrected, still saying those places exist. They don't.

After some minor condo chores, and getting everything set-up for the morning, I fell asleep on the LR couch for 2hrs, and since it was still light at 7p, when I woke, continued on with some other projects. It was nice sitting on the back patio, sipping Bai® Iced tea, having a smoke, watching the squirrels and robins foraging for nuts and worms. Temps had dropped 20° into the low-60s, by 8p. Very nice, wearing my wool Pendleton® Board Shirt (I have 17 different shirts, accumulated over the past 20 years).

Alcohol: because no great story ever began with someone eating a salad.

After a light dinner, I watched the news, old, missed episodes of "Gold Rush", and unplugged for the night at 11:30p.

Up finally at 8:30a on Saturday, a 61°, sunny, blue-sky morning. I opened-up the condo's doors and windows, to get some fresh air, made coffee, and had a couple of smokes in the garage. With my now bad back pain, I took two 50mg Tramadol, a 300mg Gabapentin, and that helped. I had lunch, and spent part of the afternoon listening to old podcast-broadcasts by Rush, on the InterNet Archive, going back to 2.4.2005, working on updating the proposal to Mt Rose Cemetery/ Dignity Memorial USA, for the hardscaping-landscaping, and then taking a drive in the light traffic over to the Rutter's Convenience Store.

Ladies, do you "farding" (no, NOT a typo) when you're driving?

I called Sherry, and she was feeling better than when we'd talked on Thursday, when she thought she had 'strep throat', so we set-up a tentative day for next week, to get together and do some walking exercise. By 3:30-p, I'd laid down on the LR couch, for a 2hr nap, and woke-up to a load of things to get done for the 9a F1 GP Race in Monaco, and the Indy 500, right afterward. After dinner, I sat on the front porch, chatted with neighbors walking by, and closed down the condo at 8p. I watched "Expedition Unknown" and "Gold Rush" on Discovery+ until 11p, set the alarm for 6a, since the F-1 GP of Monaco is on at 9, and the Indy 500 is on at 11a.

Nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to do it with. Again.

My alarm went-off at 6a on Sunday, a cloudy, cool 51°, so I made coffee, turned-up the heat for a short while, and took two 50mg Tramadol for my recurring neck and back pain. I had a few smokes in the garage, opened the big door to get some fresh, cool air, and made a 2nd carafe of House Dark French Roast Coffee. I grabbed a long, hot shower -- felt good on my sore back and neck -- and tuned into the F-1 TV Channel, for the 9a F-1 GP Race in Monaco. I had 2 loads of laundry to do, plus 2 MyPillows to wash, so I did those early in the morning, before the F-1 of Monaco Race started at 9a. It was a good race, though the track thru the Monaco Principality streets is narrow, hard to pass on except on 3 corners, and rain hit the race on lap 50 of 75 laps.

The 6p TRASHCAR Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Speedway was rained out. It was a beautiful day: low humidity, overcast with high clouds, but sunny, and in the low-70s. I grabbed an hour nap on the LR couch, had a light dinner, and watched "Expedition Unknown" and "Gold Rush" on Discovery+, until 11p, and called it a day. Tomorrow's another day.

I slept-in until 9:30a on Monday -- the celebrated Memorial Day -- and got-up to a balmy 73° and a slightly sunny, but high, overcast clouds. Still no rain in the foreseeable forecast, as we're now down 12" since January, and still 1.02" down for May, tying the 1902 record of 1.02". Crap. I made House French Dark Roast Coffee, and kept drinking 'joe', trying to wake-up. I had several smokes in the garage and on the back patio, and made a second carafe of coffee. I finally had a croissant for breakfast around 12noon, took my 19-pill regimen, and just relaxed.

If not me, then who?

I started to get tired around 1:30p, and laid down on the huge 96" LR couch, for a short 1hr nap. After getting back-up at 2:30p, I had lunch, think about how I could darken it in this area, on these overly-sunny days. Not a chance. Back to the computer, I did some "house cleaning" work with Norton 360 Premium and with CCleaner Premium, did a back-up comparison, to make sure all files were accounted for, the morning's operation. Check. After lunch, I got sleepy again, and laid back down on the couch, and slept for 3hrs, waking after 6p. I finished putting-out the garbage and recycle bins at the front curb, for tomorrow's delayed holiday p/u.

After dinner, I watched the rest of the TRASHCAR Coca-Cola 600 race, then switched to "Gold Rush" until 11:30p. Lights out. My cleaning lady, JoAnne, is in tomorrow at 8:30a, so I'll be up at 6. And I have a boatload of pain in my right knee joint, lower back and down my right hamstring in the right thigh.

Awake abruptly with the alarm at 6a, I got moving, made coffee, did my other routines and scanned the news and weather. A cool 54°, it was forecast to go up to 82°. My cleaning lady would be in at 8:30a -- and she brought another JoAnne as a helper -- and Sherry and I'd be walking over at the nearby, 62ac, local Springettsbury Twp Park, in early afternoon. We had a roof/gutter cleaning company here finishing-up the 40 units, and the two JoAnnes finished cleaning before 10a. Sherry called and we had to reschedule today's afternoon walk, since she's expecting a handyman to get some work done at her home. I wasn't feeling very "chipper" anyway -- unknown pain in the r/s temple, entire back hurt when I coughed, and down to my r/s knee -- but that was "cured" with two 50mg Tramadols, and a 300mg Gabapentin, earlier this morning. Oh well, maybe I'll get a nice nap on the LR couch, instead.

I had dinner, closed-down the condo's doors and windows, watched some old "Gold Rush" episodes on TV, pulled the plug around 11:30p, and headed upstairs, after getting tomorrow's "to-do list" finalized, and stuff put into piles on the DR table.

Awake and up, at 8:15a, to a sunny, bright, 59° morning, so I got-up slowly, due to lower back and r/s hip pain. I took two 50mg Tramadol and one 300mg Gabapentin, made coffee, opened the garage door to get some fresh morning air. After tuning into the "CP Show", I left at 10a for DeVono's Cleaners in Red Lion to p/u my final load of done laundry, and think about a new cleaners, closer to East York, and home. I left at 9:50a, stopped at the closed (and empty) Red Lion store, and then down to Dallastown. What a construction mess; down to a single road-blocked lane downtown, so I found an empty parking lot, and walked 1/8th of a mile to the store, got my finally load of starched and pressed Lee® Jeans and Faded Glory® Shirts, got out of town via the back way, and headed north to East York. I found the new ZIPS Cleaners®, and dropped-off a new load for a "trial" with them. Sure hope it works out well, as I'm out of shirt/pants laundries and dry cleaners, in my East York area.

I stopped at Royal Farms Convenience Store and Fuel Station to top-off w/ 12gals of Ethanol Free Unleaded 90 Octane Premium, and headed home. My lower r/s back/hip pain was returning, and I needed to get some breakfast/lunch, take my 19 pills, and lay down for a nap, while the pain subsided. It took a couple hours of being unconscious, and one big fat 500mg Tylenol Extra Strength, to do that.

High for the day was 84°. I had dinner around 7p, watched the news and "Gold Rush" until 11p, since I'm getting up at 6, to get ready to leave early for PSU-Hershey Medical Center, 36 mile to the north and east. Lights out.

Up at 6a with the alarm, I made coffee, did some routines, listened to the "CS Show" until it was time to get ready for the day. It was another clear blue, cool 52° morning, forecast to hit a warm 89°; tomorrow forecast to be in the 90s. Still no rain in sight. I had a quick, light breakfast, more coffee, got ready for the day, and left at 8:30a, to check-in by 10, for a 10:40a app't. (Doesn't make any sense to me, either, but them's the rules at PSU-Hershey Med Ctr.)

I left at 8:20a, and the trip to I83 Harrisburg Bridge was heavy, but I hit it on that bridge: bumper-to-bumper traffic backed-up for miles, accidents, construction everywhere and on the bridge chokepoints, police stops. I finally got thru that crap, for the long drive north to PSU-Hershey Medical Center, GI Dept's 10a arrival time and a 10:40 app't. The parking lot was packed, but after circling 2x, I found a spot. Out within an hour, would make it home just before 12noon, make some coffee, have lunch and just relax, while listening to the Podcast of the morning's "CP Show". It was a very warm 90°;, but with the overhead LR fan running, I opened-up the place to get some fresh air. That soon changed, and by 3p, I had the AC running, as the wind had dropped-off.

I had an early dinner, while scanning the news and weather sites, did paperwork and filing on the HP Desktop, while continuing to listen to the morning's missed "CP Show" Podcast. It was getting dark by 8:30p, but still 80°. We're in a major, serious drought here, and I predict it'll get worse in the coming weeks and months. I'm sometimes glad that I don't have my Ol' Garden Center & Nursery, anymore, and have to deal with it. I watched an old episode from season 4 of "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch", and switched over to "Gold Rush", to p/u fropm last night. I closed down at 11p, since getting-up at 6a had tired me out.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and next week only shows a mid-week Dr's app't, and a Therapeutic Massage, so I can get some other things done, and spend some time with Sherry.

The Left Has Pushed The Envelope.

The Left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.

Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.

The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.

Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath. They misled Congress. They altered court documents and deceived federal judges.

The FBI hired a foreign national to gather dirt on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—while he was being paid by the rival Hillary Clinton campaign.

The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.

The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multiyear audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden’s purported tax irregularities.

The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden’s appointee Merrick Garland.

California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit. Yet it flirts with an $800 billion-dollar “reparations” payout to the state’s black residents.

No one has any idea where the money for that would come from. No one can define who would qualify. No one can explain why a state that never allowed slavery eight generations ago now owes selected Californians billions of dollars it does not have.

One of the reparations board leaders asserts blacks might be willing to accept an “installment” plan of payments.

The NAACP just issued a “travel alert” advising blacks not to visit Florida. The announcement was timed to draw negative attention to conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ announcement of a presidential bid.

Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis—all outside Florida—have the highest black murder rates in the nation.

Florida in contrast, with a black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident!

Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits.

The culprit was its former corrupt leadership.

Its extravagant spending, plush homes, and family hangers-on have nearly bankrupted the advocacy group. It cannot account for the millions of dollars in corporate guilt and protection money it leveraged following the George Floyd riots in 2020.

In New York, a threatening subway career criminal with 42 prior arrests was subdued by a bystander and died during the confrontation. The criminal is now deified. The would-be Samaritan is charged with felony manslaughter.

The deceased’s uncle is vocal about his late nephew’s confrontation. But he himself was just arrested with stolen property and armed with a knife. He was mysteriously still roaming the streets despite 70 prior arrests and current active arrest warrants.

In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions.

They are systematically destroying decades of progress that sought to ensure parity between men and women’s sports.

Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria. Companies are apparently now hellbent on destroying their brands, profits, and net worth.

Under pressure from the LGBTQ activists, the Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium.

Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation because the group’s notoriety hinges on its sexualized and often pornographic mockery of Catholic ritual, the Holy Trinity, and Christian faith.

The supposedly courageous group would never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus.

The Dodgers apparently do not care that Greater Los Angeles may be home to 6 million Mexican American citizens and resident Hispanic immigrants. Most are Catholic and many were avid Dodger fans.

Anheuser-Busch has nearly destroyed its best-selling Bud Light brand by hiring transgender performance-art activist Dylan Mulvaney to hawk the brand—and his own transitioning—to America’s working classes.

The Disney corporation, for decades, has enjoyed multibillion-dollar concessions and a veritable 40-square mile private fiefdom gifted from the taxpayers of Florida.

No matter. Disney has rebranded it films, amusement parks, and television offerings to reflect radical transgendered, gay, and race advocacies.

The results so far are billion-dollar losses in Disney stock, subscribers, and viewers.

A woke CNN has all but destroyed its once-global audience. It now has fewer viewers than certain popular podcasts.

All these implosions are not just shocking but surreal. Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide -— to the delight of our enemies like Communist China?

© 5.23.2023 by Victor Davis Hanson, "American Greatness".